TotalEnergies Marine Fuels has joined Japan’s Itochu Corp and eight other companies to study critical safety aspects of bunkering container vessels with ammonia in a bid to develop the carbon-free fuel into a feasible, sustainable marine fuel.
The study will carry out a safety assessment of bunkering with ammonia while a container ship is being loaded or unloaded with cargo. Ensuring safety during the conduct of two unlinked operations – so-called simultaneous operations – is particularly complex but such operations are a must for container vessels to operate at maximum efficiency. The marine fuels entity of TotalEnergies can leverage its experience from enabling the adoption of LNG as a marine fuel to contribute towards developing the necessary supply chain, infrastructure and best practices for bunkering this new fuel in container vessels.
Ammonia is considered one of a handful of fuel candidates with the potential to become a viable zero-carbon marine fuel, thus helping the shipping industry to decarbonise. It is commonly traded, used globally in fertilisers and can be shipped by ordinary LPG carriers. However, there are challenges to ammonia as a marine fuel, not least, addressing concerns around its toxicity and lower energy density than conventional fuels.
The companies and organizations involved in the study are Algeciras Port Authority, Spain; Port of Rotterdam, Netherlands; Maritime Energy & Sustainable Development Centre of Excellence (MESD), Singapore; CMA CGM, France; Maersk, Denmark; Mitsui OSK Lines, Japan; Pavilion Energy Singapore; PSA Corporation, Singapore; TotalEnergies Marine Fuels; and Itochu.
Itochu is promoting development of ammonia-fuelled container carriers with potential partners following the development of an ammonia-fuelled bulk carrier concept, which obtained Approval in Principle in 2022. Itochu says it will accelerate the development of an ammonia-fuelled container carrier based on findings of this MoU with plans to bring the vessel to the market in the late 2020s.
